I love pizza. I love homemade pizza. I love coming up with new topping combinations and trying new cheese and jamming them all together on top of a thin-but-not-too-crispy crust.

This is my go-to pizza crust recipe. It's an amalgamation of different pizza crust recipes I found online, tweaked to our taste. I make my pizza dough in my Kitchenaid mixer with the dough attachment. Will this recipe work in a bread machine? Maybe. Will it work if you mix it entirely by hand? Depends on your arm muscles and stamina, I'm guessing.

Ingredients

2-1/4 teaspoons (1 packet) active dry yeast (not instant!)

3/4 cup warm water

1 Tablespoon maple syrup (but only the real stuff!) (or use honey or ... whatever. I don't think it matters much. Just don't use artificial sweetener. That shit is crazy.)

1 Tablespoon oil (I use olive oil)

1 teaspoon salt (I use coarsely ground sea salt)

2 cups all-purpose flour (look - I used to do the whole wheat crust but I had to quit. Healthy pizza makes me sad.)

Method

In the bottom of your mixer bowl, stir together yeast, warm water, and maple syrup. Let sit for ten minutes until the yeast "blooms" (looks sort of foamy-ish.)

Stir in oil and salt.

Add 1-1/2 cups flour and mix on low speed with dough hook for 5 - 7 minutes, adding the remaining 1/2 cup flour in small increments until the dough is no longer sticking to the sides of the bowl and is smooth. You may need more than the 2 cups I use. You may need far less. It has something to do with sea level? Or is that canning? I don't know. Maybe the dough is affected by the humidity of the air. That sounds more reasonable. Regardless, don't just dump the 2 cups of flour in the bowl - work with it and go slow.

Lightly oil a large mixing bowl and place dough in bottom, turning once so the top of the dough is lightly oiled. Cover with a clean tea towel and let sit until dough is doubled in size (1 to 2 hours.)

Turn dough out onto a floured surface and roll to your desired size / thickness. I do three dinner plate-sized thin crust pizzas but maybe you like a doughier crust. Go with your heart.